drive. Should I plug this third drive into
the SATA RAID 1 or SATA RAID 2 port?
If I don’t use the RAID port for this third
hard drive, can I use that port to control
a SATA optical drive?
—AngelCake AnaThe Doctor doesn’t have your
particular board on hand, but he’s
pretty sure the RAID controller
on that board lets you set up a
JBOD (just a bunch of disks) array,
which combines the capacity of
all the drives in the array into one
huge volume. You should also be
able to run this type of array with
a single drive—just go into the
BIOS and make sure the Promise
controller is enabled. Next, shut
down the machine and connect
the drive to either of the SATA
ports and turn it back on. Watch
your monitor while the machine is
booting and be ready to press the
appropriate keys to get into the
RAID-configuration menu.
Use the RAID wizard to cre-
ate an array, select JBOD, follow
the instructions, and then reboot
your PC. Once you’re back at your
desktop, the drive will be available
for use as soon as you format it.TANTRUMS OF A 3-YEAR-OLD
I built my own computer about three
years ago. It’s outfitted with an AMD
Athlon XP 2800, 1GB of RAM,
and an nVidia videocard with
128MB of RAM. It worked
flawlessly until about two
months ago, when it mysteri-
ously started shutting itself down.
It refuses to come back on unless
I switch off the power supply, wait
several minutes, and then switch it
back on again. I thought it might be
overheating, but running it with the
side panel removed didn’t solve the
problem; blowing the air from a
small personal fan into the case didn’t
help, either. I’ve also cleaned all the
ventilation holes.
After four virus checkers and
five utility programs failed to detect
anything—ruling out viruses, Trojans,
and spyware—I decided to replace the
power supply with an OEM model. This
solved the problem for a little while,
but now it has resurfaced. Has this
power supply gone bad, too? Or do you
think there’s something wrong with
my motherboard, CPU, or some other
component?
—Thomas N. Bailey, Maj, USAFThe Doc thinks your initial PSU
diagnosis makes the most sense.
Non-branded power supplies are
often of dubious quality, so it’s
very possible the new one is also
defective. You should exchange it.
If you still have problems after the
third PSU, then something else is
likely afoot.
Older Athlon XPs are finicky
about heat. If the thermal paste
between your CPU and heatsink
has dried up, a gap might have
opened and allowed the CPU to
overheat. Defective capacitors are
another common problem with
older Athlon XP motherboards.
Examine yours closely to see if any
of them are bulging. The thermal-
paste problem is an easy fix;the capacitor problem is slightly
more complicated. A useful source
of repair services and DIY kits is
Motherboardrepair.com.CRUSTY, BUT NO CLOWN
I’ve been using an Epox 8RDA+
motherboard for the last two years
and haven’t had any problems—until
recently, that is. The machine won’t
start up unless I unplug the USB cables
that run to the front of the case. While
I had the case open, I noticed a crust
had formed on the top of a few of the
motherboard’s capacitors. I know this
can’t be a good thing, but how much
should I worry about it?
—Bob ElliottThe electronics industry has had
problems with defective capacitors.
Many of the boards will function fine
for a few years, until the bad caps
finally blow their tops. Your board is
exhibiting early signs of this defect,
but there’s no way of telling how
much longer it will function.THAT’S SOOO FIVE YEARS AGO
My Dell Dimension 8200 was the top of
the line five years ago. It’s outfitted with
a 1.8GHz Pentium 4, 256MB of RDRAM,
and an nVidia GeForce 2 MX 400. Today,
it’s barely able to play such games as
Far Cry, Half-Life 2, and my personal
favorite, World of Warcraft. I get choppy
graphics and extreme lag.
RDRAM, which seems to have fallen
out of favor with manufacturers, seems
extremely expensive. Does it make sense
to upgrade this computer, or should I just
bid it sayonara and start over?
—Evan RietdykThe upgrades you need most are
more RAM, a faster videocard, a
bigger power supply, and a faster
CPU—in that order. The Dimension
8200 has four RDRAM slots, and
you must add RDRAM modules in
pairs. If your existing 256MB of
RAM is in the form of four 64MB
modules, therefore, you’ll have
to junk two of them to upgrade.
A pair of PC800 256MB modules
will cost you in the neighborhood
of $160 to $190 and get you up to
768MB of total RAM.
The Doc’s favorite mainstream
AGP boards—ones based on either
ATI’s Radeon X800 XL or nVidia’s
GeForce 6800 GT—are priced in
the $250-to-$300 range, but they
require more power than your Dell’s
250-watt PSU can deliver. In fact,
it might not be able to handle the
next-lower level of GPUs, either. The
Inspiron 8200 uses a proprietary
wiring harness, so if you do upgrade
your power supply—either because
you want to or because you have
to after frying it while running one
of these power-hungry videocar-
ds—your choices will be somewhat
limited. The Doc suggests checking
out the offerings from PC Power
and Cooling: its Turbo-Cool 425 Dell
goes for about $150.
So, the Doc’s upgrade recom-
mendations total up to $550. Adding
a CPU upgrade would be a luxury,
considering it would tack on anoth-
er $250. Five years is a pretty good
run for a PC. You might want to look
into just buying a new machine at
this point.TANTRUMS OF A 3-YEAR-OLD
I built my own computer about three
years ago. It’s outfitted with an AMD
Athlon XP 2800, 1GB of RAM,ously started shutting itself down.
It refuses to come back on unless
I switch off the power supply, wait
If all your SATA ports are several minutes, and then switch it
full, try plugging your addi-
tional hard drive into your
motherboard’s SATA RAID
port and configure it as a
JBOD array.You can file RDRAM under the heading, “It seemed like a good
idea at the time.”68 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2005
Is your PC suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Enlist the
Doctor’s help in taking arms against a sea of troubles. Just send an email
describing your problem to [email protected]. Extra points for
letters written in iambic pentameter.how 2 IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME
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